Opening of the Mont-Saint-Michel bridge to pedestrians!50170Le Mont-Saint-Michel

The Mont-Saint-Michel, a UNESCO world heritage site, is one of France's most visited sites with 2.3 million visitors in 2013.

The bridge over the Channel to Mont-Saint-Michel opened to pedestrians on Tuesday 22 July, allowing visitors to go to the Mont without using the road on top of the seawall for the first time.

The bridge is 1km long, and seems visually to merge on the verge of the mainland. This very elegant 760 m long curve offers an oak covered lane for pedestrians (4.5m wide), separated from a central roadway (6.5m wide) which will open to motorised traffic in October.

The bridge, designed by the Austrian architect Dietmar Feichtinger, will be completely finished by summer 2015.

End of September: the large esplanade at the foot of the city walls, where the bridge terminates, will be completed.

From the autumn and lasting six months: the dyke-road will be removed and a second channel will be dug, in order to allow free passage for the tidal flow and the Couesnon river flush towards the east side of the Mont.

Spring/summer 2015: once this work is completed, the sea will surround the Mont for nearly half the year, and the foot of the rock will actually be in the water for about 20 days a year.